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Creditors and the Greek government have set the date for their next meeting early December, when the Troika representatives will return to Athens to examine the implementation of the second package of measures.

According to sources, before leaving the Greek capital on Thursday evening, the heads of the institutions submitted to Minister of Finance Efklidis Tsakalotos a list of 10-15 measures which must be implemented by the beginning of December according to them in order for the tranche of 1 billion euro to be granted and for the way to open for the first monitoring of the programme. A monitoring that is expected to start in January in the best case scenario, i.e. if the government fails to vote on the list of the second package of measures by Christmas.

This list does not include topics of major concern relating to the social security system, changes in the taxation of farmers, taxation of rents and incomes of individual persons and legal entities. At this stage, the Greek government has managed to ensure the non-implementation of the toughest measures. In this sense, the creditors believe they have made concessions facilitating the government in the direct implementation of the remaining measures.

However, the measures on the list are not "easy" and it is certain that the government will have to pay a political cost for them. According to sources of the newspaper Kathimerini, the most important measures included in the second package are the following:

1. Changes in the financial and credit sector provided for in the memorandum of December.

2. Settling the non-performing loans.

3. Privatisation of the independent operator of electricity transmission.

4. The issue of trade in electricity, through which the Public Power Corporation DEI must reduce its share in the wholesale and retail markets by 25% by 2018 and by 50% by 2020.

5. Voting on the new unified payroll table in the public sector.

6. Creating a working group to deal with the establishment of the new privatisation fund.

7. Creating a new revenue agency, which must be independent.

8. Issuing a ministerial decision on the application of claw-back in hospitals.

9. Revising downwards the prices at private diagnostic centres, so that costs are aligned to claw-back levels.

10. Implementing the reforms proposed by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development through its two instruments for commodities markets. These include the difficult issues of medicines without a prescription and the opening of retail shops on Sundays.

If all of the above is implemented by Christmas, the creditor representatives will return to Athens in January to carry out the first monitoring of the new programme. It will include the reforms in the social security and tax systems, as creditors are pressing for triggering them in exchange for a review of the debt issue, as this debate will begin immediately after the successful completion of the first monitoring.

Moreover, it is expected that the governing council of the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) will meet today to approve the granting of the 2 billion euro tranche, in line with Saturday’s approval on the part of the Eurogroup. The 10 billion euro deposited in a special account of the ESM is available for the recapitalisation of Greek banks and the amount will be granted as soon as required by the Financial Stability Fund.